Mud Painting: Its 'Process' Art

Mud stations provide much more than just pretend cooking and mud pies.
Have you ever tried Mud painting?
It is pretty effective and I am sure you know that Mud painting isn't done for a beautiful product you can put on the fridge.
It is process Art: which means it is all about the exploration, learning and experimenting that the child experiences during the process of creating the art.

Here Dimples had lots of fun Stamping, Splatting and Stomping things in the mud.
He explored the different patterns made from the different shaped utensils and what happened when he used them differently; tilting them, rolling them, splatting them, stamping them, sliding them around to get different effects on the white paper.

The whisk and the masher were the favourites as they had the most effective print.
I had some plastic animals near by that he wasn't too interested in. He used a pig and a dinosaur to do foot prints. He made them stomp around for a while and rolled the pig in the mud but went straight back to the utensils.

Remember, Its the PROCESS that matters: Children's Process Art fosters sensory perception, it provides the opportunity to represent and symbolises real life experiences or just be freely imaginative, it offers children a chance to explore, experiment, learn by cause and effect, create and build, but most importantly it gives them the freedom to be an individual.
Creating an Art piece, in their eyes is a way for them to express themselves in the way they wish without having to conform. The process is fun and may be many different things to them. This freedom is what makes it special. So when it comes to children, forget about the beauty of their art and focus on what is being experienced.

What better way to explore the process and freedom of Art than with some Mud painting?

Happy Adventures :)

Easy Christmas Sponge Stamping

This is a fun Christmas themed Painting activity and if you have some large paper you could re-use the child's beautiful Christmas Art as home made Christmas wrapping paper.
There are many benefits of making art from a young age but the most important thing is the process of creating.  These Easy christmas Stamps are reusable and provide lots of fun!

All you need are some washing up sponges, I didn't have a pack handy but I did have these scourers with sponges on them so they did the trick. Cut them into Christmas Decorations and provide some trays of paint to dip into. Then you can create and learn while having fun, discuss Christmas and what it means to your family or to the child and get them into the spirit ready for the happy holiday Season.

We did a Candy Cane, Christmas Tree, A present, A star and a circle as a Bauble.
Then we Dimples finished he rinsed them out, splashed them around in a bucket of soapy water and squeezed them clean, all ready to be re-used another day.
Cleaning them is part of the messy fun as well so dont forget to assign the little ones to that task as well.

 

Dimples enjoyed squishing the sponges into the paint and did some good disposition matching once he got into it, he used the star to go on top of the tree and the presents to go underneath.

I love doing this kind of fun with him because there is no right or wrong way to create. It is very personal and self soothing so it fosters independence and confidence; It is all about the process and how he wants to create. It's all beautiful in my eyes and its the fun making it that is most important.

 



Creating Art and Painting is a fun and easy young childhood activity, it allows the child freedom to create and use their imagination, it is a wonderful tactile experience, it strengthens their little hands and fingers, and did you know it enhances neural connections in the right hemisphere of the brain which is responsible for emotional regulation, intuition and creativity.
So grab some paint and have some stamping fun.

Happy Adventures :)